Thursday, April 24, 2014

Film Atlas (Russia): The Dawns Here Are Quiet

Country: Russia

Title: The Dawns
Here Are Quiet / A Zori Zdes Tikhie (1972)

Sometime during WWII Sergeant Vaskov is running an unimportant
anti-aircraft encampment far from the German front. Discipline is slack and the
base has a reputation for drinking, carousal and fraternization with the local women.
After failing a military inspection, Vaskov’s men are reassigned and he's given new soldiers less susceptible to the same old problems: an all women
unit. Vaskov initially has trouble taking the new recruits seriously,
maintaining authority and crafting them into an effective fight force, but he
soon warms to them and earns their trust. In the second part of the film Vaskov
leads a small team of five women to capture German paratroopers that were seen
landing in a nearby forest. After crossing difficult terrain they find
themselves facing a superior force, better trained and better armed. Vaskov and
the five women are put to the test, knowing they have little chance of
survival.

The nostalgia-saturated lightly-comedic first act of The Dawns
Here Are Quiet caused me to drop my guard. I enjoyed the send-up of laidback
military outposts, the mildly gender-progressive character development and the
black-and-white woodland and swampland scenery, but I quickly and quite wrongly
wrote this off as not likely to be the classic war film that Russian critics
had claimed. That’s because director Stanislav Rostotsky carefully ‘carefree’
setup is all about drawing you in so that when the tone switches to a
war-is-hell, guns-can-jam, anyone-can-die game of cat-and-mouse you just aren’t prepared, much like the main characters.

Rostotsky does
an excellent job establishing the stakes despite the small-scale (6 vs. 16) of
this obscure skirmish. The limited cast helps means more time to establish each woman individually, counter to the genre’s tendency for
spectacle-driven clashes between waves of faceless grunts. We grow to
understand and like these Soviet soldiers; to know their strengths and
weaknesses. We share Vaskov’s pride in their bravery, cunning, stealth and
increasing competence; like many of the best war films, this is about
outthinking an opponent that you can’t outgun. We also feel Vaskov’s pain,
cracking through his stoic face, as he accepts their likely fates.